


Our Hands Will Never Be Clean

by Agaryulnaer



Category: The Following
Genre: Blood, Blood and Gore, Bondage, Canonical Character Death, Death, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Dubious Consent, Graphic Violence, Knives, M/M, Masochism, Murder, One Shot, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Sadism, Sexual Violence, Stabbing, Unsafe Sex, did I mention violence, extreme violence, glorification of death, stabbing is possibly a metaphor, we don't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 13:25:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3897973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agaryulnaer/pseuds/Agaryulnaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Ryan held hostage by the Korban cult- a captive audience in the most literal sense- Joe takes the opportunity to demand a simple answer to a simple question: what does it feel like to kill, Ryan? </p><p>(Or what really happened between Joe and Ryan when Ryan was at Korban.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Hands Will Never Be Clean

**Author's Note:**

> There is EXTREME sexual violence and non-con going on here. This is compounded by the fact that the narrative is written from Joe & Ryan's point of views, so they do not acknowledge that it is rape. Also, Joe is a sexual sadist and that is made very clear within. This is not BDSM, it is essentially violent rape. Please be aware of this before reading!

“This feels so _familiar_. We keep playing out variations of the same scene, you and I.”

The look Ryan gives him would be withering to anyone else; Joe, however, feels no such effect and worse, can’t help but smile in response. It's a reaction he knows full well Ryan hates. Even so, it doesn’t stop Ryan’s dry commentary. But then, no act of man or God could.

“Yeah, well, I think I preferred it the other way around.”

Joe huffs out a single breath in a laugh, recalling the many times their roles had been reversed- when he had been the one bound to a chair, Ryan free and unfettered in front of him. But here there are no cameras, no prison guards, no laws, no audience; here there is only Joe and Ryan, together in this room, and their ongoing conversation. And here, Ryan is the one bound to a chair, because now they are playing by _Joe’s_ rules. Here the police are replaced with Korban cult members, people loyal to him and him alone.

They’ve exchanged Ryan’s followers for Joe’s, in a way. Fitting, though Ryan would deny the term for the people who surround him. “You have to admit, there is a certain satisfaction in the parallelism.”

Ryan’s expression is dry, as it always is. Always, until he’s pushed too far, anyway. Joe has always taken a particular sort of joy in pushing Ryan too far. Left to his own devices, Ryan Hardy would stagnate. Joe forces him to _grow,_ to see himself. “I thought you’d moved beyond literary devices, Joe.” And apparently Joe also forces him to exercise his dry wit and condescension.

To that, Joe only shrugs, smiling just a little as he stands. He’d been sitting across from Ryan in the only other chair in the center of the bare, rather uncomfortably rustic room. While he sat, it had given the illusion of them being equals in this conversation- and they are; there is truth to that. In many ways, Ryan is Joe’s only equal. But Joe enjoys the dynamics of their relationship too much to stay seated, enjoys lording his power over Ryan even when it means playing the brute. Subtlety is not Ryan’s forte, and he doesn’t want to let Ryan forget that he is, right now, at Joe’s mercy.

And oh, what a place to have Ryan Hardy.

He paces slowly closer to Ryan’s chair, circling around behind him. This forces Ryan to choose between turning his head to try to keep Joe in his sights, or being uncertain of Joe’s position. Neither option sits well with Ryan, though Joe is sure he must know that Joe is unlikely to stab him in the back. How _pedestrian_. That was never his way. He demands his victims know who has killed them. “Old habits, etcetera etcetera, I suppose.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Ryan says, pointedly keeping both his head and his gaze straight forward when Joe steps behind him, even when the other man runs a hand along the back of his chair. His fingers just barely miss Ryan’s shoulder blades, brushing near enough that Joe imagines he can feel Ryan’s body heat in the cold. To his credit, Ryan does not stiffen. He does, however, respond. He always does, even when he decides he’s had enough, swears that he’s done. “Trying to talk me to death is clearly not one you’ve broken.”

Joe laughs, feeling lighter than he’s felt in weeks. Months, perhaps. He slows, and his hand is so close to Ryan’s back, so very nearly touching. Joe imagines he can feel it: the distance between them slowly closing, the magnetic pull of inevitability. “Oh, Ryan. I _have_ missed you.” Joe pulls his hand away from the chair as he circles back into Ryan’s line of sight, more sauntering than walking as he makes for the doors; it's as though he has all the time in the world. Out of their sight in the hallway, Korban guards stand watch, an unobtrusive but constant presence. But Joe wants them to be alone, wants Ryan's full attention.

So he pulls the doors closed, keeping an eye on Ryan behind him as he moves. When Ryan is in the room, Joe’s attention is rarely very far from the other man. He’s done so much for Ryan, to Ryan. Even now, the things he does are so often dictated by Ryan’s movements, by the reactions Joe can and does forcefully drag from him- and vice versa. “Ever since Lily told me that you were close, I’ve been waiting for you to find me.”

“How romantic,” Ryan says, voice flat. It doesn’t hide his anger or his nervousness from Joe; they know each other too well for that. Being alone, truly alone, and unable to defend himself with Joe makes him nervous. And it should. It _should_.

The doors click shut, loud in the echoing, bare room.

“I’m not the one who’s all talk here, Ryan,” Joe responds, not bothering to hide his amusement as he turns back around, content that the room is sufficiently closed off. They’re alone, at least until Emma comes barging in, demanding he kill Ryan. Certainly that is a wise idea, Joe can recognize that much. She has always been a cool head, even in... _delicate_ situations. And yet, in this case, it doesn’t matter. Joe disregards that wisdom, disregards everything for Ryan’s sake. It’s a mistake to expect him to behave rationally when it comes to Ryan Hardy. Ryan would say it’s a mistake to expect him to behave rationally at all, but they both know that’s not true. That’s just a coping mechanism, a way for people to distance themselves from people like him, to paint him as insane and irrational. As a monster.

He is and can be all of those things, of course. But he is also quite human. An uncomfortable truth, for some.

He returns to the chair set in front of Ryan, but doesn’t sit; Joe just puts his hands on the back of it, regarding the other man, eyes bright. How he relishes these moments. “You joke and deny, and yet here you are.” He gestures towards Ryan, a grand sweep of the arm that prompts an eyeroll from Ryan. As always, Joe carries on without regard for Ryan’s feelings on the matter. “You came, as I knew you would. You had no choice.”

Ryan stares up at him, expression not as unreadable as he thinks it is. The worry, the nervousness that hides behind his eyes when Joe sees a truth about him that no one else knows- that he won’t admit to himself- is there. Joe has become familiar with that particular brand of Hardy denial, the panic hidden away behind layers of quips and anger. Ryan’s mouth is set in a hard line, jaw clenched. The sudden urge to punch that jaw hard enough to dislocate it sweeps over Joe in a heady rush; he draws in a slow breath through his nose as Ryan speaks, inhaling the possibility of violence.

“There’s always a choice, Joe.” Ryan, Ryan. How predictable.

“Is there?” Joe asks, musing. He doesn’t bother to keep his expressions to himself, not with Ryan. He has nothing to hide. Ryan’s answer clearly entertains him, which is a warning sign that Ryan has no trouble reading, if his closed off, wary expression is any indication. “What an interesting stance for the famed Ryan Hardy to take. So then, it follows that there was a choice when you killed Giselle?” He pauses for dramatic effect, and Ryan does not disappoint. His surprise is visible, and charming in the fashion of a child’s sudden realization that he’s been caught in a lie. Joe tilts his head in the direction of Ryan’s chair and taps a finger on his chin, feigning thoughtfulness, inexpertly hiding a smile. “Not where you expected this conversation to go?”

“I didn’t know she meant so much to you,” Ryan says, regaining his composure quickly now that the surprise has worn off. He thinks himself so stealy, so resolute, but it’s all of it just a front- a mask he shows to the world. After all this time, after all he’s done, Ryan still hides his true self. But not from Joe. Never from Joe. Under all of that maverick charm, intimidation tactics and misguided attempts at nobility, Joe knows that Ryan is as obsessive as he is, single-minded with no thought for the consequences or for those around him, afraid of himself and of what he could become. Afraid of the mirror he sees when he looks into the face of Joe Carroll.

“She didn’t.” Now Joe moves forward, dragging the chair closer with a sudden scraping of wood on wood. When he stops, content with its position, the chair is so close to Ryan that once Joe sits their knees touch with every small movement. “She didn’t mean anything to me.”

“Does anyone?” Ryan asks, raising an eyebrow. A minute expression, but Joe has long since learned to read a great deal from those. One has to, with Ryan. “Does anyone mean anything to you, Joe? Anyone but yourself?”

Joe smiles, just slightly, resting his chin in his hand with his elbow on his knee; it puts him well within Ryan’s personal space, even when Ryan sits up straight. It’s a clever move, trying to move away without seeming to give ground, unwilling to even give the appearance of retreating. Joe simply watches him, unbothered, fascinated. Ryan does know him so well. Joe wonders if Ryan dreams of him at night, of his knife digging a hole into Ryan's chest, of the blood and the sudden silence. Of how easy it was to carve into him, to get under the skin. Of the way he fought, but in the end- in the end, there was almost no resistance.

Joe does. He often dreams of Ryan, and Ryan’s heart, beating and then not; of Ryan, and blood.

And Joe tells him the truth, or as much of it as he himself understands it. He is not always particularly truthful to himself, but that’s not a virtue he holds dear. “Claire did, once. Joey, perhaps Emma in a way…” He trails off, fairly certain that’s a lie when he considers it, and then shrugs, finishing with what he knows is the truth. “...you,” He gestures in Ryan’s direction but shrugs it off as unimportant; there was no reason for Ryan to ask a question he already knows the answer to. “You mean a great deal to me, Ryan, you know that. But don’t change the subject. I want to hear about Giselle. I want to hear about your _choices_.”

Ryan snorts slightly, somehow conveying his lack of actual amusement with the noise. “No you don’t. You want me to admit that I killed her, that it doesn’t bother me, that I’d do it again. Well, I would, Joe. I’d do it again, and I sleep just fine. Is that what you want to hear?”

Sitting back in his chair, Joe draws in a loud breath, considering that. It’s clear that Ryan is trying to put an end to this conversation as quickly as possible- and just as clear to both of them that Joe isn’t going to let that happen. But the fight matters to Ryan. He always fights, no matter that he knows the end result. Joe thinks perhaps he respects that. “Yes and no,” he allows after a moment, regarding Ryan thoughtfully. “Of course you would do it again- she was a murderer, and you’d assumed she’d killed your lovely niece.” Ryan grits his teeth and Joe pretends not to notice, carrying on. It seems only polite. “Righteous anger is certainly a perfectly valid motivating force. It’s how you sleep at night, isn’t it? You tell yourself that’s the difference between us. You kill people, but you don’t commit murder, because they deserve it.”

By the time he finishes speaking, Ryan has forgotten about gritting his teeth in favor of a _particularly_ dry stare, head slightly tilted. “A mission killer. That’s where you’re going with this? Come on, Joe. You can do better.”

Joe smiles, the expression disarming in its genuine amusement, and gestures in Ryan’s general direction with one hand as though he concedes. “I apologize, I do always strive to live up to your expectations.”

“I’m not sure ‘up’ is the right word in this context.”

“Don’t be rude,” Joe chastises offhandedly, unable to work up the ability to be offended. “Tell me, then. What is it? Why do you kill, Ryan?”

“You know why.” Ryan looks like he wants very much not to meet Joe’s eyes, but he doesn’t look away. Joe isn’t sure Ryan is capable of looking at anything in any way other than head-on. Admirable, admirable and just a bit stupid.

Joe simply stares at him for a moment, waiting. When Ryan doesn’t expand upon his answer, he sighs, sitting back. “I have all day, Ryan.”

“No you don’t,” Ryan says, shaking his head. “You know you don’t, Joe. You’re not gonna live to see tomorrow if you don’t get out of here soon.” And even then- well, that remains unspoken.

“I’ve come to terms with my imminent death.” To his credit, Joe looks unsurprised and unbothered by the thought of his death. “Threats are beneath you, Ryan. Why do you kill?”

It’s clear Joe isn’t going to let this go; they fall into a heavy silence, Ryan’s jaw set while he weighs his options. He can sit here and fight with Joe about this all day, or he can just get it over with, and… still sit here, but hopefully without Joe. Work on a plan to get out of here. “Recently? To get you, Joe. I’ll kill who I have to to see you in a bodybag.”

“Unimaginative,” Joe says, but is obviously accepting of this response. “But honest, for once. I’d still say that’s well within the outline of a mission killer, being for the greater good and all, but it insults both of us to pretend this-” He gestures between them. “-is about the greater good.”

Ryan fights the urge to roll his eyes; he’s much less subtle about it than he thinks he is. Joe doesn’t seem to mind. “But Giselle was different. She was much like the man who killed your father. That was revenge. Pure and simple.” Looking tired- the way he always does when Joe brings up intensely personal information about him- Ryan shrugs. Joe keeps pushing, leaning forward again, too close. His voice quiets, the conversation suddenly taking on a more intimate tone. “Did it help? Did it ease your pain?”

“Max wasn’t dead,” Ryan says, shaking his head as though this is all nonsense. A moot point.

“But in that moment she was,” Joe argues. “You didn’t know the truth. To you, she was dead. And you killed Giselle- for her? For you?” Ryan doesn’t answer, stealy again. Joe isn’t deterred in the slightest. He never is. “Did you enjoy it?”

Ryan’s stare is hard, unforgiving. “No.”

His stare doesn’t make his answer any more believable. Not to Joe, who reaches a hand out, pausing only briefly with indecision before he taps a finger on the scar near Ryan’s heart, the one he knows is there, hidden underneath the shirt. Ryan tenses, freezing, but doesn’t look away, doesn’t try to pull back. Joe would be impressed if he wasn’t so busy staring at the spot where his finger meets Ryan’s shirt. Ryan’s heart- a contradiction. If Joe had finished the job properly, Ryan would be dead. Joe would never have been caught. But they would never have had this- what they have now, what they’ve had since Joe’s escape.

No one would even know the name Joe Carroll. Not without Ryan Hardy.

The truth is, Joe can’t imagine his life without Ryan, not anymore. And yet he still hesitates, fingers itching for a knife to finish what he started. It would be so easy, sliding a blade through skin and muscle. Joe knows; he remembers. He can feel the memory in his hand, a still-living thing.

Ryan's heart; beating and not, at once- a contradiction in Joe’s desires.

In the end he lets his hand drop away from Ryan, pulling back to meet the other man’s eyes. Ryan is staring at him, projecting calm distaste, but Joe can see beneath that. Beneath that, Ryan _understands._ And Ryan knows that Joe can see it. That’s why he hates Joe. Not because Joe has killed people, not even because Joe has targeted him, made his life hell (and he has, he has enjoyed every minute of watching Ryan’s life fall apart around him). He hates Joe because Joe understands him, and he understands Joe. He hates Joe for it, but that’s not even the core of it, not really. Ryan hates _himself_ for how he understands Joe, for seeing his reflection in Joe, for needing him. It disgusts him, to know exactly what Joe is saying without words, about what he’d done- about what _they’d_ done. The guilt eats away at him, underneath all of his vitriol- his armor.

And Joe- Joe loves to chip away at his armor. Joe loves those moments when Ryan collapses in on himself, the weight of his guilt and revulsion pulling him under inch by inch.

For a moment, Ryan thinks Joe is going to kill him.

For a moment, Joe _is_.

The moment passes, as it always does. Joe can’t kill Ryan. He won’t lie to himself about that, not the way Ryan does. Too much of Joe depends upon, feeds off of Ryan. He wouldn’t be himself without Ryan Hardy. And so he smiles, the expression a calm and chillingly empty thing, and doesn’t wrap his fingers around the other man’s neck and squeeze until the pressure that lives behind Joe’s eyes, in his arms and his fingertips, builds and crescendos into a fury and then is gone, gone along with Ryan’s heartbeat. Not now, not now. Joe has repeated this litany for years, almost a prayer. The day will come when it is time to kill Ryan Hardy. But: Not Now.

“I don’t believe you.” When Joe finally speaks, it’s almost in a whisper. He doesn’t drop his gaze from Ryan’s face; he just sits, running a finger over his lower lip as he tries to stop, stop or redirect the violence building, waiting in his palm for a knife to complete it. “You felt it- you can still feel it. Was it her knife? Did it surprise you, how easy it was? I suppose it doesn’t matter. It didn’t help; not really. In the end, it was the same as before. Just for a moment, it made things right. But then Max’s death was still there, this yawning emptiness, and no number of bodies could fill it. Just as no amount of noble deeds and good intentions will make up for the things you’ve done, Ryan.”

Ryan falls silent, and for a brief moment Joe can concentrate on the pleasure of having silenced him. It doesn’t last; it never does between them. Their conversation will never end, not until the day the last of them dies. Ryan’s expression is hard, closed off, but his eyes- his eyes are bright with the truth he can never admit to himself. Never except when he’s with Joe. Joe mirrors it all back to him so precisely, so clearly, that all of his lies and distortion melts away. “What do you want from me, Joe.”

It might have started out as a question, once, but the words end on a flat note, matching the hard line of Ryan’s mouth. One side of Joe’s, meanwhile, quirks up ever so slightly even though he looks hardly focused on the conversation, eyes on Ryan’s but far away- or too close. “You know what I want, Ryan.”

Ryan fights to make a face at him, the patented Ryan Hardy expression of distaste; it falls flat. “I’m not going to tell you I enjoyed killing her just because you want me to, Joe. Not everything in the world is subject to your whims. I know that’s a hard lesson for you.”

“Oh, it was,” Joe admits, not ashamed. “But that’s hardly relevant and you are well aware of that fact. All I want is the truth. I want you to face your own truth, Ryan. I want you to- to _grow_. You can’t delude yourself forever-”

At that, Ryan actually laughs, the sound bitter and slightly too loud in the echoing emptiness of the large room. “That’s pretty rich, coming from you. Really, Joe. Joe Carroll, _first prize_ in delusions. First writing Poe’s shitty ‘sequel,’ the whole weird thing with Claire and Joey and your crazy idea of a ‘ _family’_ , now this… messiah complex or _whatever_ the hell this Korban thing is, not to mention your _fixation_ with-”

Joe is up and on him before he can finish the sentence, moving so fast that his chair falls with a clatter to the wooden floor behind him. Ryan jumps at the sound, rather than at how close Joe suddenly is, leaning in with an arm on the head of the chair, face inches from Ryan’s, all of the amusement wiped clean from his features as though it had never been there at all- and a knife in hand. The knife there so quickly, so smoothly, it’s as though it had been there all along, as though Joe had never put it down. An extension of his being, held up against Ryan’s cheek, trapping him between the blade and Joe’s arm on the other side of his head.

“Fixation with what, Ryan,” Joe asks, letting his question fall flat the way Ryan’s had, watching himself speak in the reflection of his knife until he tilts the blade far enough that all he can see is Ryan, one of Ryan’s eyes. So very _blue_ , Ryan’s eyes. So expressive. It was the first thing Joe ever noticed about him- the last thing he noticed, the night he stabbed him. Beautiful, really. Joe had never seen such beautiful eyes on a man before- and he hasn’t since.

Ryan takes a moment to answer- very un-Ryan-like, but then Joe supposes he’s allowed a moment’s surprise now and again. He takes pity- or at least carries on without need for Ryan’s input, gaze ticking from the blue of Ryan’s eye reflected in steel to the reality, spending a second watching Ryan’s expression impassively, his own gone eerily blank, before going on. “With you?”

Somehow the question, spoken so quietly, voice low but conversational, sounds like a threat. And Joe’s expression is more than blank, it’s empty- as if waiting for something to fill it, not sure what it’ll be.

“Yeah, Joe,” Ryan says, gamely. Or it would be, if he didn’t sound like he was on his way to laughing at the absurd obviousness of his answer and the sheer insanity of the situation he’s found himself in. How Joe could possibly seem insulted by the insinuation of his obsession with Ryan while at the same time holding him hostage, threatening him like this. Ryan tries to convey the general feeling about that through his eyes, because his movements are a bit restricted at the moment. “With me.”

At that, Joe lapses into silence, allowing Ryan to sit in tense uncertainty. He doesn’t move the knife, but neither does he drive it into Ryan’s eye, or any other part of Ryan- yet. And then, after a long moment, Joe draws the knife away, just slightly, gliding the flat of the blade down Ryan’s cheek and shivering even though he’s not the one its cold metal is touching.

And then, just as slowly, Joe tightens his other hand’s grip on the back of the chair, near Ryan’s head, and slides his leg over Ryan so that he has one leg on either side of the bound man’s thighs, and sits. The chair creaks under their combined weight, but holds- Joe knew it would.

Ryan swallows thickly, and Joe watches the workings of his throat with a detached fascination, the knife still held nearer to Ryan’s jaw. Joe’s grip on the hilt tightens until his knuckles are white around it. He wants to rip Ryan’s throat out with his _teeth_ , to let everything Ryan keeps hidden away from the world come pouring out of him in a rush of red, until it’s all there is left of either of them.

When he finally, finally drags his gaze away, back up to Ryan’s face, Ryan is staring at him defiantly. But Joe- Joe can see the defeat there already, behind his brave expression. He knows, they both know, where this is going. “You’re not really doing anything to argue the point, Joe,” Ryan says, his voice quieter than it had been but just as strong. Deflecting with humour, as always.

Joe’s smile has teeth, an uncomfortable expression with them so very, very close to Ryan’s skin. His eyes tick over Ryan’s features, one by one, as though accounting for them all, taking stock. Everything’s in order, for now. “Oh, Ryan. I’m not arguing.”

Ryan fights back the urge to swallow again and Joe watches as he forces a smile onto his face, humourless. “Well, that’s a first.” Joe’s smile turns almost fond for all its menace, and he tilts his head in acknowledgement of the point. Ryan forges on. “You’re not going to kill me, Joe. We both know you won’t.”

“Won’t I?” Joe asks, and normally, normally he would sound amused. Right now it sounds more like he’s musing to himself as he turns back to the sight of his knife, his white knuckles there next to Ryan’s jaw, his neck- and just below, his heart. And then, slowly, Joe takes the blade and draws a careful line from Ryan’s jaw up to his ear with its point, the relentless pounding in his ears the perfect accent to thin line of blood that wells up in its wake, punctuated by Ryan’s hiss of pain.

That sound is almost too much for Joe; it takes every ounce of willpower in his body to keep from twisting his wrist, thrusting the knife through the fragile skin and muscle between Ryan’s ear and his jaw. Instead, he draws in a sharp breath of his own with the effort, his other hand reaching quickly so he can take hold of Ryan’s hair and keep him steady when he tries, instinctively, to jerk away.

His fingers knot so tightly in Ryan’s hair that Joe knows it must hurt more than the shallow cut ever could; Ryan breathes a curse as if in agreement and Joe smiles, baring his teeth before leaning in to run his tongue up the same slow path his knife had taken. Ryan’s blood is bitter, awful and coppery, and makes Joe’s teeth ache; but the taste (and the way Ryan snarls as he fights Joe’s hold) sends a chill down Joe’s spine.

In a way, it calms him, just enough to allow him to pull back and meet Ryan’s eyes, eyes that are furious and terrified and even worse, what _must_ be the worst thing for Ryan- aroused. The self-loathing Joe can already see following that reaction- just beginning its slow spiral outward- makes him smile, Ryan’s blood a red streak across his teeth. “Do you really believe I’m the only one with a _fixation_ , Ryan?” he asks, and where he meant it a moment ago to be low and threatening, it comes out quiet, half a seduction spoken into the heavy air between them as he watches Ryan’s retort falter, his tongue too slow. Joe pushes his advantage, buoyed by the taste of Ryan’s blood on his tongue. “Do you really believe you don’t feel the same things I feel?”

For a moment, Ryan looks torn, his obvious instinct to fight against Joe’s hold- both physical and mental- his natural inclination towards conflict warring with confusion, with the way he can feel this situation spiraling out of control, watching pieces of himself get picked up by the whirlwind and carried off with it. Joe allows him that moment, but inevitably, Ryan gathers what’s left of himself and rallies. Sarcastic until the very last, Ryan. “I would say that depends on what _things_ you’re talking about, but that’s not true,” Ryan says, working hard to keep his devil-may-care attitude evident in his tone, even quiet as they’ve become. “Whether we’re still talking about Giselle or we’ve moved on to whatever this is, I don’t feel whatever it is you do. For one thing, I’m straight.”

At that, Joe actually _tsks_ , making a sour face and pulling back just far enough to get his distaste for Ryan’s comment across visually. “ _Ryan_. Shame on you. We’re not getting into this now, but safe to say I am disappointed in your adherence to such a… a _naive_ view of sexuality. All things considered with regards to our _past_ , I’d say you’re a bit less straight than you’d like to admit. Of course, it’s your right to identify however you wish, but- well, identifying oneself as something out of ignorance is just inexcusable in this day and age. For god’s sake, read a book, Ryan.”

Ryan lets out a snort of laughter, almost despite himself. “Sure, Joe, just as soon as this kidnapping is over, I’ll reassess my sexuality based on your opinion.”

He says this as though it’s the most unreasonable thing in the world, and at this moment, perhaps it is; Joe doesn’t seem to think so, however, nor is he swayed from his point. “You needn’t be rude about it- it’s hardly _my_ fault you’re repressed in so many and varied ways. I’d say I’ve done everything I can to help you in that sense, really.”

“Is that what this is, Joe?” Ryan asks, watching him carefully, assessing. He knows that in his completely insane way, Joe actually believes what he’s saying, that he’s _helping_ Ryan. And at the same time, he knows Joe will take every opportunity to hurt him. It’s a fine line, and inconsistent- even for Joe. It’s a _dangerous_ line. “Are you helping me with my _repression_?”

It’s almost a joke. To anyone else it would read as a joke. Joe, though, can see where the sarcasm, the wit comes from- it’s his defense, as always, a way to surround himself, separate himself from the things going on around him that are out of his control. Joe wonders if Ryan can see that in himself, wonders if he doesn’t do it purposefully sometimes. Joe makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat, seeming perfectly at ease with holding a conversation with Ryan while on top of him, knife still so close to Ryan’s throat.

But the knife isn’t the threat here- _Joe_ is. “Perhaps it is, in a way. I hadn’t thought of it that way until now. To be perfectly honest, Ryan, I’m just reexamining my feelings on killing you. It’s always a bit of a… a _complex_ issue, you know.”

Ryan snorts again, the sound dry. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“No- no, Ryan,” Joe cuts him off, speaks over him, shaking his head. “You know what I mean. You know.”

“I don’t,” Ryan says, sounding tired. “I really don’t, Joe.”

Joe makes another face while he leans back, inspecting Ryan’s expression as he pushes the point of his blade _just slightly_ into the skin of the other man’s neck. A tiny drop of blood wells up around it, and Joe considers this while he speaks, stares at it as though it might hold the answers to every question he’s ever dreamed up. “I think you do. You’ve had so many chances to kill me, Ryan. Why do you never take them?”

“Has it never occurred to you,” Ryan begins, resolutely refusing to so much as twitch in response to Joe’s knife, “that I just don’t want to kill anyone? You do know that not everyone feels the way you do about murder. I know you do, you’re not an idiot.”

“Very kind of you to say,” Joe says, and it sounds both offhanded and as though he ought to be rolling his eyes. He doesn’t, though; he just watches his knife, Ryan’s blood, Ryan’s pulse. “This circles back to the point, fortunately. How you very much _do_ understand. We’re two of a kind, you and I.”

Looking well past resigned- this is a refrain they’ve been over time and time again- Ryan opens his mouth as if to reply, but it dies on his lips as Joe slides one of his legs to hook his foot around the back chair leg, pushing his hips into Ryan’s in a slow, drawn-out movement. Watching as Ryan’s pulse speeds up, as visible and undeniable as the other reaction Joe can feel through both his and Ryan’s jeans. No, _has been_ able to feel. Ryan’s been half-hard since Joe rushed him, more than that since he ran his tongue up the column of Ryan’s throat.

Ryan’s jaw shuts with an audible _snap_ , clenching in anger and something like disbelief. Except it can’t be disbelief, Joe knows it’s not, because he spends a moment searching Ryan’s face, his eyes, holding him in place with the hand in his hair as he looks for a trace of fear, of nervousness- and finds only anger and resignation, a specific kind of guilt that Joe knows has more to do with Ryan than with him.

Joe tightens his hold in Ryan’s hair, grip painful, and stares the detective down until the silence is too much, too obvious, and he’s certain Ryan’s argument isn’t coming. Joe’s voice is low again, when he speaks, dangerous. “Don’t. _Don’t lie to me_.”

Ryan swallows, clearly trying to gather himself, to launch another offensive, but Joe doesn’t let him, doesn’t give him the time. He repeats the action, pushing his hips into Ryan’s, sure Ryan can feel- has _known_ \- how hard he is, has been for half of this conversation. The movement is awkward and almost as uncomfortable as it is satisfying, the drag of fabric and confined space on the chair making the movement almost clumsy. But Ryan’s pulse jumps anyway, and Joe smiles at the sight, victorious, manic. He leans in close again, close enough to watch the trail of red spring up behind the path his knife takes on its way back to Ryan’s ear. It doesn’t draw blood, not this time. But the sight of it, the pale skin of Ryan’s throat- _Ryan’s throat-_ suddenly blossoming red, red where _he_ put it, _his_ design, has Joe’s breath catching in his throat, heavy, unsettling him the way no other part of this conversation had.

Drawing in a shaky breath, Joe pulls the knife away, resting the hand holding it on Ryan’s shoulder and running a finger along the fine red line he’d left behind. He watches Ryan as though the other man is the only other person in the world, the only thing that matters or will ever matter, his singular obsession- _His._ “Isn’t that what it felt like?” he asks, so quietly it’s almost a whisper; he leans in to tongue, carefully, at the drop of blood he’d left behind on Ryan’s neck, next to his pulse point. His skin is hot, almost too hot, slick with sweat despite the cold, and blood- blood from Joe. Joe fights it, the unrelenting urge to bite down, feeling Ryan’s pulse jump under his tongue and barely suppressing a shiver. Instead, he continues speaking. “Killing? Killing her?”

Visibly pulling himself together, Ryan fights to yank his head away from the fingers caught in his hair and snarls, “Fuck you.”

Joe’s laugh is low, somewhere between mocking and pleased. This time, he grinds against Ryan _hard_ , hard enough to hurt, watching the other man fight the urge to react. “Perhaps if it wasn’t quite so necessary for you to be tied up.” Slowly, Joe pulls away and releases Ryan’s hair, fingers cramped and knuckles white from the strength of his grip. Immediately, predictably, Ryan tries to headbutt him. The knife’s reappearance is swift, held almost delicately along Ryan’s collarbone. He’d been waiting for a struggle.

Joe tsks, unbothered, as Ryan freezes; too much movement of his head and he’d cut himself without any help from Joe. And Joe- Joe bites his lip at the sight, hard enough to cut through skin, tasting his own blood as he imagines it, Ryan twisting away, the harsh drag of the metal through his skin. He draws in a slow breath, transfixed at the sight, at the _possibility_. “And if we had a bit more time.”

Now it’s Ryan’s turn to bare his teeth. “I wasn’t being literal.”

“No?” Joe asks, feigning surprise as his hand- now free of Ryan’s hair- slides down between them, palming Ryan’s dick through his clothes, grip too hard, too _familiar_. “Not to be crude, but this seems extremely literal.”

Ryan’s grimace turns into clenching his jaw again, fighting against the noise that wants to escape, a choked gurgle instead of the whimper it tries to be. Joe lets go of his own bleeding lip to smile, the expression comforting and familiar in the manner Joe has with him, _for_ him, that haunts Ryan with its possibilities, its... _sincerity_. It would be easy to give in, but Ryan won’t accept _easy_. He will give in, Joe knows that. He always does. But it won’t be easy, and Joe wouldn’t want it to be. That would rob them both of this. Of moments like this.

“If you’re going to stab me,” Ryan begins, switching tactics. He is trying so very hard to sound weary and unaffected and failing so, so beautifully. “Just get it over with, Joe.”

Joe lets out a quiet snort of air through his nose, an amused sound, and watches Ryan for a moment, not responding aloud. No. This time, for his answer, he drags the point of the knife away from Ryan’s collarbone so lightly it’s just brushing against him, the barest hint of pressure- and then, without taking his eyes off of Ryan’s face, slides the point of the knife through Ryan’s skin and in an inch through his shoulder with an easy, fluid movement.

Ryan’s howl of pain is loud enough that it masks the sound Joe makes low in his throat- at the feel of the knife, the feeling compounding upon the touch-memory of sliding it through Ryan’s ribs into his heart, the life fading from him and Joe needs- he _needs_. This time his hand goes to Ryan’s neck instead of his hair, holding him in place, and then his mouth is on Ryan’s, swallowing Ryan’s cries of pain, a part of Ryan that’s his now, his forever.

It takes Ryan a moment to overcome the shock of pain- he’d expected to be either killed or not killed, but this in between came as a surprise- and the way Joe is trying to devour him. It’s not a kiss, not even when Ryan nearly sinks into it for a moment, instinctively. It’s closeness, and pain, and then, when Ryan does the only thing he can think to do and bites down on Joe’s tongue so hard he tastes _Joe’s_ blood, it’s _Joe_ crying out in pain, swearing and shuddering on top of him, surrounding him, trying to climb inside him, under his skin.

And then it’s Joe pulling back to protect his tongue- even with his eyes glazed over and blood staining his lips, Joe remembers that he needs to be able to speak- breathing heavy and hand almost too tight around Ryan’s throat. It’s Joe rolling his hips into Ryan’s where he’s trapped, unable to get away, fighting the urge to do the opposite. And it’s Joe biting his way along Ryan’s jaw to run his tongue along the shell of Ryan’s ear as he twists the knife- still in Ryan’s shoulder- slowly.

Ryan cries out, even though he’d known it was coming, his back bowing as much as possible as he instinctively tries to pull away. All it does is push his hips into Joe’s again, and the satisfied note in the way Joe growls in response makes it clear that this was his goal. Ryan’s shout of pain fades into something like a whimper at the conflicting sensations, pain pulsing out from that point on his shoulder, the cuts Joe already inflicted, and the way his body is so obviously reacting. The way he wants it, the twisted pleasure of it all. It doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t, not the way sex should- not the way sex _does_ , it’s not as though Ryan is lacking in that department- but he wants it, he knows he does, and Joe knows he does, too.

The thought leaves a sick taste in Ryan’s mouth that has nothing and everything to do with the traces of Joe’s blood still lingering on his tongue.

But Joe- Joe knows him, _sees_ him, and doesn’t allow him his self-pity or his self-righteous disguise. Joe lets go of his throat, trailing his hand gently up Ryan’s neck to the side of his head and pulling Ryan against him so that their cheeks are nearly touching, Joe’s mouth near Ryan’s ear, his breathing turning to pants that Ryan pretends not to remember, not to dream about, his hips moving now in slow, steady rolling motions into Ryan’s.

This time, when Joe pushes the blade in deeper, inches into muscle now, there’s no hint of a surprise. Prepared, Ryan manages to choke back a shout, feeling the blood steadily soaking into his shirt. But he’s _not_ prepared for the sound Joe makes, low in his throat, feral- a growl. It’s predatory, and worse, _possessive_ , and Ryan shivers at the sound, his eyes drifting closed. Later, he’ll tell himself it’s so he didn’t have to watch any of this, so he could ground himself. Later, he’ll come up with the lies he’ll almost make himself believe.

But right now, Joe breathes out his name- _Ryan_ \- like every dream Ryan’s ever had of the way his name rolls off of Joe’s tongue- proprietary, a touch indulgent, and _enamored_ \- and he lets slip a sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan just as he feels Joe trail his fingers through the blood soaking his clothes, running down his chest and his arm, the knife left behind, still in him.

Something in the way Ryan’s blood feels hot on his fingers, thick and staining the insides of his eyelids a deep red, everything _red_ and _Ryan_ , is too much for Joe; he snaps, suddenly almost frantic in his need, reaching down to undo Ryan’s trousers. He fumbles, hand sticky with blood, shaky with a desire so urgent it threatens to pour out of him, through his fingers, to inflict itself upon anyone in his path, transmute or transform into death- and just as he’s about to give up, the button gives.

Pulling his trousers down is obviously impossible at the moment, but effort and Ryan helpfully lifting his hips (Joe’s smile at this has teeth) allows him room to work. He closes a fist around Ryan’s dick, slowing only for a moment to watch as Ryan lets out a slow exhale, mouth slightly open and eyes closed. Joe’s grip isn’t gentle, and neither is the pace he sets or the things he begins murmuring, to Ryan or to himself- it doesn’t matter. Ryan is too far gone to do anything but let him, and the pain of it all should be grounding but it isn’t. It isn’t.

“I’ll stop, Ryan,” Joe whispers, and Ryan’s breathing speeds up at the sound of his name again. Joe smiles, a quiet laugh, fond even as his voice is dark in Ryan’s ear. “I’ll stop if you ask me to. If you _really_ beg, Ryan. If you really want. But you don’t, do you? What you want, you’re too afraid of what it means to say it.”

Ryan opens his mouth to respond- to tell him to fuck off, to let him know just what he thinks about this begging bullshit- but nothing comes out and Joe isn’t waiting for his answer. His grip on Ryan’s dick is too tight, too much, but Ryan is pushing his hips up into it anyway- _“Yes, Ryan. Ah-I know_ exactly _what you want.”-_ chasing the contact, wanting to feel Joe pushing against him again. And Joe does, he _is_ , rutting against him- _“I..I know what you_ are _.”-_ moving as hard and as much as he’s able until he’s fumbling with his own zipper, pulled back enough to look down, to see what space is left between them.

His hands slow, and then stop, for just a moment, while Joe stares. There Ryan is, hanging half out of his jeans, boxers barely shoved aside, his dick covered in his own blood. Joe had run his hand through it, after all, wanting to cover Ryan, like a finger painting, inside out.

The sight is arresting. The picture Ryan makes: torn apart, the knife in his shoulder, covered in blood. Struggling to find the will to fight- struggling just to _breathe_. Disastrous.

Slowly giving in, piece by piece.

“You are beautiful, Ryan,” Joe admits quietly, reverently, eyes bright and manic.

Ryan, breathing hard, chokes a laugh. “You’re insane, Joe.”

Joe only smiles and slides the knife the rest of the way into Ryan’s shoulder.

This time, Ryan’s cry is more like a sob, choked off and wet; Joe doesn’t give him time to recover, reaching to get a blood-soaked hand around both of their erections and beginning the slow, relentless slide of his hips again. His hand, Ryan’s shirt, their dicks- the blood is everywhere, slick and still warm, making his grip on Ryan, on them both, slip occasionally even as he keeps moving, thrusting too hard against Ryan and threatening to tip them over. But it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t stop him. Nothing can, and nothing matters but _this-_ the blood and Ryan and chasing the end.

Not the same end as it might have been, not the end the looms over them both, always so near, a part of everything they do. But this end is close, so close, to that and Joe- Joe feels it. He knows Ryan does, too. Death. The driving force behind it all. There’s no lying anymore, not right now, no charades. Not in this moment.

And Ryan- Ryan, he _makes_ Ryan see it. When Ryan closes his eyes, not wanting to watch, to see the evidence of how much he is enjoying this- Joe snarls and reaches up, digging bloody fingernails into Ryan’s scalp and yanking until Ryan swears, the words sharp and broken in between laboured breaths, and opens his eyes.

“No,” Joe growls, teeth bared, face streaked with blood. “No, Ryan. _Look_.”

And God help him, Ryan does.

He watches as Joe’s hand moves along their dicks, pressed together, blood covering them both. Everything is red and bright and painful- _too much_ \- lights starting to dance before his eyes (blood loss, Ryan thinks distantly, the onset slowed because the knife is still in him). But he keeps his eyes open, keeps watching as Joe rocks into him, watches as his own body arches into it, trying to move despite the ropes, wanting more even though he’s not sure _more_ wouldn’t kill him. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s what he wants. He doesn’t know, can only keep watching, forced to be present; he can hear how ragged his own breathing is. How every breath Joe takes in now sounds like a quiet moan, how Joe’s breath hitches and slides into a groan when Ryan tries to arch into him and it _hurts_ and he fucking _whimpers_.

And then Joe pulls himself close to Ryan again, pressing their bodies together so that Ryan can’t see anymore, can’t see anything, and Joe’s thrusts turn short and fast, desperate. All Ryan can see now is Joe, Joe’s face, how _transfixed_ he is when he tears the knife out of Ryan’s shoulder, dropping it unceremoniously to clatter to the floor so that he can run his hand over Ryan’s shoulder. Like a caress, through the gush of blood, gentle and somehow almost... innocent in the earnestness of the gesture. Ryan doesn’t even shout in pain; he just makes a harsh, choked noise and tries to remember what Joe had said he had to do to make it stop. “Joe-”

Except then Joe is leaning his head against Ryan’s again, cheek to cheek, and Ryan knows, he can see it, can _feel_ it, how far gone Joe is. It’s too much for him, overwhelming, and so it must be the same for Joe. Ryan… Ryan _knows_ , understands Joe exactly. And he expects, in that moment, that he is about to die; but then Joe just runs a gentle hand through the blood on his shoulder, like permission somehow, and grinds out, “This is it. This is what killing feels like, _isn’t it, Ryan_?” and Ryan comes impossibly, _infuriatingly_ hard to the feeling of Joe pressing a finger into his wound.

His vision turns spotty at the edges, the precursor to passing out from blood loss, but Ryan can’t do anything about it, can’t stop the way he drives his hips into Joe’s, Joe’s hand tightening impossibly on him the whole time, pressing their dicks together, too, too tight- _excruciating_. It’s disgusting, and _wrong_ , and it’s the best orgasm Ryan has had in years, the sound of Joe panting, shamelessly moaning at the feeling of _Ryan_ the soundtrack to every wet dream he’s had in the last decade, every sin he’d woken up and drunk away the memory of.

It’s not until he starts to come down from the high, his hips still lightly pushing into Joe’s grip, that the reality of what had just happened- is happening- comes crashing back over Ryan. And Joe- Joe watches, desperate and intense beyond his ability to control it now. Hips still crushing into Ryan’s, hand there, holding them both close, together, bound by Ryan’s blood and Ryan beginning to writhe, oversensitive, Joe watches. He watches as the realization sinks in, as Ryan begins to understand what he’d said without speaking, what this _means_.

The disgust begins to settle behind Ryan’s eyes and Joe comes with a shout, thumb digging into the wound in Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan’s breathless cry of pain grounds him there as his hips stutter forward without his input and he lets out small, choked-off moans from so deep in his throat that they sound almost like hoarse growls. Joe rides it out, eyes on Ryan’s the entire time.

In the end, Ryan is the one who looks away.

Once Joe’s breathing begins to slow, the silence that pools around them like Ryan’s blood is beginning to is… loud. Jarring, like the realization that Joe is sort of collapsed on top of Ryan, running his hand through the blood on his shoulder almost lovingly, the way you’d run your fingers through your lover’s hair. Ryan would feel sick if he was capable of feeling anything; he’s using all his energy not to pass out.

Or- Joe thinks as he slowly pulls back, feeling the moment slip away as the bleeding begins to slow a bit, the blood on his hands beginning to dry- using all of his energy not to _think_.

“Well,” Joe says into the silence, and it would be awkward coming from anyone else. From Joe, it sounds just this side of mocking. Normal. “That was a good talk.”

He waits a beat, but Ryan doesn’t respond. Joe allows him his silence, this once, climbing off of him and surveying the damage. Blood everywhere. Boxers, jeans, ruined. Thank goodness Ryan had the good sense to wear black, he might be able to salvage those, later. He’ll want to. He’ll pretend he’s going to throw them away, but then he’ll keep them. He’ll tell himself it’s for revenge, in case there’s some evidence, all sorts of nonsense. But that won’t be why.

It’s all right; Joe can talk enough for both of them. And he does, once he’s tucked himself back into his own boxers and zipped up his jeans. Still bloody, of course, but nothing that a quick change won’t fix. It won’t be that easy for Ryan, but he’ll think of something. He doesn’t want Ryan to be _too_ uncomfortable, after all. Or to go into shock and die of blood loss. No, that can’t be how Ryan Hardy dies.

So Joe crouches down, doing the same for Ryan as he’d done for himself even though it’s a lost cause, tucking him away gently, no malice or mocking in the gesture. He does it for decency’s sake, for Ryan’s sake. “I really feel like we’re getting somewhere with regards to your stubborn denial, Ryan.”

Ryan just shakes his head, slowly. His voice, when he speaks, is hoarse, and completely, deadly, serious. “I’m going to kill you, Joe.”

Joe smiles.

 

**Author's Note:**

> During every single Ryan & Joe scene in the show, you can basically cut the sexual tension with a knife. So.. I did that. This level of smut is not normal for me, and especially not violent non-con, so... I don't really know what to say. I'm still kind of horrified that I wrote this.
> 
> This can be taken as either a “what-if” AU of Ryan’s time at Korban, or as a missing scene. Yeah, yeah, but Ryan wasn’t all stabbed and bleeding, you cry. Yeah, well, Ryan walked off a pacemaker from being stabbed in the fuckin heart so let’s not get carried away with the realism of Ryan Hardy’s wounds. Also, I think it has to be known that I wrote the majority of this pre-season 3, so Joe wondering about Ryan’s dreams is totally coincidental. 
> 
> PS- If you need more Joe in your life, you can find my Joe tumblr at legacyofinfamy.
> 
> (Title from "When You Break" by Bear's Den.)


End file.
